1. Goran Simic
From the "Mourning of Sarajevo" journal
The Face of Mourning
Well I know mournings's face
whom the Sarajevo wind strafes
while flipping through newspaper pages
stuck together from pools of blood
on the street where I awkwardly watch
my steps with a small loaf of bread under my arm.
It's in the river too
when its waves sway a dead woman's body
on whose arm I notice a watch
as I run across the bridge with a bucket full of milk.
And, in the chill of December, I saw that face in a hand motion
that stuffed a shoe of a never grown child
into a wood-burning stove.
It's a face that returns its thanks on the back of family photographs
that flutter beneath garbage trucks.
And it is the face that rebukes a trembling pencil
for being incapable of writing a bulky dictionary of lament.
A face which nightly keeps me from sleeping
which is why I watch my neighbor
who is always awake by the window
staring into the blind darkness.
It can start all over after all
After I buried my mother
and ran from the cemetary in a shower of shells
after I gave back my brother's rife to the soldiers
when they brought him back in twisted canvas
after I saw the flames in my children's eyes
as they fled into the cellar amongst horrifying rats
after I wiped an old woman's face with a rag
fearful that I might recognize her
after I saw how a hungry dog
licked his bloody wounds on a street corner
after all of this
I'd like to write poems like news reports
that are so empty and uninteresting that I could forget them
the moment someone asks me on the street:
why do you write poems like an indifferent news reporter?
A Love Story
Bosko and Amira's story,
who in escaping Sarajevo tried to cross a bridge
hoping that on the other side
where the bloody past reappeared anew
there could be a future for them,
was the media-event of the Spring.
Death was waiting for them in the middle of the bridge.
The man who pulled the trigger wore a uniform
and was never accused of murder.
The whole world press wrote about them.
Italian articles wrote of Bosnia's Romeo and Juliet
French journalists praised love's inseparability
which tear up political boundaries.
The Americans recognized in them two nations' common symbol
there
on the bridge split in two.
The British saw their corpses as examples of wars' absurdity.
And the Russians just kept quiet.
The dead lovers' photographs spread out
in the blooming Spring.
Only my Bosnian friend Prsic
who secured the bridge
was forced to watch day after day
how the worms the misquotes and crows
finished off Bosko and Amira's bloated bodies.
I heard how he cursed
when the Spring wind blew from the other side of the bridge
the stentch of decay
forcing him to pull on a gas mask.
About that however not one paper made mention.
From the "Mourning of Sarajevo" journal
The Face of Mourning
Well I know mournings's face
whom the Sarajevo wind strafes
while flipping through newspaper pages
stuck together from pools of blood
on the street where I awkwardly watch
my steps with a small loaf of bread under my arm.
It's in the river too
when its waves sway a dead woman's body
on whose arm I notice a watch
as I run across the bridge with a bucket full of milk.
And, in the chill of December, I saw that face in a hand motion
that stuffed a shoe of a never grown child
into a wood-burning stove.
It's a face that returns its thanks on the back of family photographs
that flutter beneath garbage trucks.
And it is the face that rebukes a trembling pencil
for being incapable of writing a bulky dictionary of lament.
A face which nightly keeps me from sleeping
which is why I watch my neighbor
who is always awake by the window
staring into the blind darkness.
It can start all over after all
After I buried my mother
and ran from the cemetary in a shower of shells
after I gave back my brother's rife to the soldiers
when they brought him back in twisted canvas
after I saw the flames in my children's eyes
as they fled into the cellar amongst horrifying rats
after I wiped an old woman's face with a rag
fearful that I might recognize her
after I saw how a hungry dog
licked his bloody wounds on a street corner
after all of this
I'd like to write poems like news reports
that are so empty and uninteresting that I could forget them
the moment someone asks me on the street:
why do you write poems like an indifferent news reporter?
A Love Story
Bosko and Amira's story,
who in escaping Sarajevo tried to cross a bridge
hoping that on the other side
where the bloody past reappeared anew
there could be a future for them,
was the media-event of the Spring.
Death was waiting for them in the middle of the bridge.
The man who pulled the trigger wore a uniform
and was never accused of murder.
The whole world press wrote about them.
Italian articles wrote of Bosnia's Romeo and Juliet
French journalists praised love's inseparability
which tear up political boundaries.
The Americans recognized in them two nations' common symbol
there
on the bridge split in two.
The British saw their corpses as examples of wars' absurdity.
And the Russians just kept quiet.
The dead lovers' photographs spread out
in the blooming Spring.
Only my Bosnian friend Prsic
who secured the bridge
was forced to watch day after day
how the worms the misquotes and crows
finished off Bosko and Amira's bloated bodies.
I heard how he cursed
when the Spring wind blew from the other side of the bridge
the stentch of decay
forcing him to pull on a gas mask.
About that however not one paper made mention.
For More Bosnian War Poetry try http://www.leftcurve.org/lc18-20pgs/aftersarajevo.html
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